300 a review, and sense about Sparta

As all the fine authors above make clear, the Spartans under Lycurgus' idea of state, while practicing a kind of democratic govt themselves, took the neighboring states which were geographically much larger than them, and under their efficient model new professional army (the only one in Greece), enslaved literally the Messenians and others to be serfs for 4-500 years. Ths model army required the boys at age 7, as depicted in the movie, to be removed from home, buggered in agoge (left out of the movie) and 'encouraged' them to form homosexual relationships with a 'mentor', to weld the fighting units on the battlefield. Those are the factors agreed on by all these authors.

This all ended after 371 BC when a guy from Thebes, invaded Peloponnesia preemptively, with 50,000 farmers he had trained up, who had a real democracy which had been threatened by the pros from Sparta, and in the world's first neo-con move, purposefully went from town to town freeing the helots, and building fortified cities in his wake so that the newly formed democratic city states could protect themselves. With Sparta now stripped of their helot slaves, this Theban farmer army didn't even bother entering Sparta, which was left now undefended, and nearly uninhabited by this strategy.

"300" is a piece of art, with relatively factual history. Many scenes could be paintings as stills. The violence is so complete in the battle scenes it is otherwordly. About 10 years ago my family was on the battlefield of 2nd Manassas, standing in the railroad cut. In 1862 the men stood on opposite sides of this cut, and for HOURS stood and fired at each other with .56 caliber rifles. It was unimaginable to us. How could anyone dream they would do that for 5 minutes and live. So as I watched the spartans form their small phalanx (usually ~50 across and 8 deep, with, as you can see above, MUCH larger spears, for obvious reasons) it ocurred to that this was another jump in violence level past that of Jackson and Pope's men.

The portrayal of the giants and monsters are just artistic exaggerations which don't affect the reality of the history. No one seriously thinks monsters were there, I am sure, but it's a nice touch. The reason is especially pointed because after the battle fought 10 years before. At a place called Marathon, the Athenians (who fought alone because the Spartans had a religious festival) under Miltiades slaughtered the Persians, utterly. When the Persians came back in 480 BC with 250,000+ at a minimum, it had to have seemed, as each city state in the Persian's path "medized" to the Persian side, as if a monstrous swarm was descending on the hated Athenians and Laconians, who had done all they could in those 10 years to cause revolt and foment in the greek city states, conquered and bludgeoned to yield earth and water to Persia in today's Turkey before the battle of Marathon.

Even at the corny moments, what else but corny sentiments could hold men fast in such a spot.

Nothing.

It is the values some snigger at cynically which hold men in such positions, and 300 captures perfectly the cynicism, brutality, horror, and beauty of the real history.

Which is why it's okay to remember that Leonidas (who did NOT have to pass thru the agoge, btw) was leading slave holding, serf killing, pederasts who voted, against WORSE people, with a brutal system, and totalitarian gift for their descendants thru all time, as we can see. Leonidas' three days gave us the shot at Runnymede, and Philadelphia on a hot July day.

But the real question is, how can I date Gorgo? What a woman!  

Herodotus:

Demaratos, an exile from Sparta, attempts to pass the news of Xerxes' invasion to Sparta. He sends a message to Sparta, which needed to be decoded. The message arrived in Sparta, but there was trouble with the decipherment: "When the message reached its destination, no one was able to guess the secret until, as I understand, Cleomenes' daughter, Gorgo, who was the wife of Leonidas, divined it and told the others that, if they scraped the wax off, they would find something written on the wood underneath. This was done; the message was revealed and read, and afterwards passed on to the other Greeks." 

 THERMOPYLAE TODAY. JUST TO THE LEFT OF THE HIGHWAY LIES THE PLAQUE: